Archive for September 2011
You will find there are a lot of great benefits to hosting a website on your own, but you must know there can be some problems. It is necessary to be completely confident that you want to make such a commitment such as hosting a website on your own. If you do not know what it takes yet to host a site on your own you may find that it is exhausting. This will lead to quite a bit of lost cash and effort.
One of the major negative factors of hosting your own website is the fact you have to watch over it by yourself. If wish to upgrade the website or you find some sort of problem with it, there is not host to contact that will assist you. If you want something to do with your website done, you will need to do it yourself in stead of paying someone else to do it for you.
Also, unless you have the know how, your web hosting abilities are not going to be as top notch as some of the more pro website hosts. The professionals have access to much more resources, and have more time on their hands. This isn’t even mentioning the level of expertise they boast. While hiring someone like an IT pro can take a bit of weight off your shoulders, in the end it is not much different than it would be.
Another big downside to this whole thing is the fact you tend to pay a hefty price for both the server as well as the bandwidth that it takes to run. You don’t pay nearly as much when you simply get what you need from a host. You will find a lot of waste cash and efficiency unless you are completely filling your server with websites. It would be quite a loss to pay for a full server to run your website off of it.
There is a huge benefit to hosting a website on your own. If there wasn’t no one else would bother now would they? The biggest facet is the fact you will have complete control when it comes to your website. You can change things such as the operating system and various programming languages or even the hosting environment. This is all at your whim to change. The limits of your options are the ones you set yourself.
Also, there is not having to put up with a bothersome hosting company. If you are trying to fill a very specific niche with your website and have special needs, there is a high likely hood you will not find what you need in another website host. In situations like this the only route you can take is a path toward hosting a website on your own.
There is the great pro side of this with the fact you are not limited on what you can place on your site. You can also find a lot more use from a server besides simply using them to host a website, they are powerful machines. You will be able to try new things with your wide spread freedom that owning your own server and hosting your own website gives you.
First, let me clarify something. There are many reasons why you would want to have your website professionally hosted. However, people in certain situations are better off hosting their site themselves. For example, if you are starting a new business or playing with an idea that you are not sure will work, you might not want to pay a hosting company to host your site, at first. Hosting the site yourself will allow you to save money that you can use to grow your business. Once your business starts growing and your site starts getting a lot of visitors, then you will find it necessary to pay a web hosting company to host it for you, but until then, you need to test the waters.
If you have a computer and a high speed internet connection (DSL/Cable) you can host your own website. You will need to keep your computer on and online 24/7, which should be no big deal. Besides this, you need only to follow the 7 steps I describe below, to make your website available to users on the internet:
1) Install a web server: Most Windows operating systems either come with a web server, or one can be downloaded for free depending on the version of Windows. The web server is the program that runs in the background on your computer listening to requests from people on the internet. It’s the software that finds your pages in your computer and sends them to the users requesting it.
2) Configure the web server: In this step you simply tell your web server where to find your website that is sitting somewhere in your computer.
3) Get a domain name: In this step you decide on the name that you want for your site and buy it from a provider. Domain names are cheap and you pay the fee only once a year.
4) Configure DNS: This is where you associate your website name with the IP address of your computer so users are transferred to your computer when typing the name of your website.
5) Configure your router: Your router needs to know about the computer that has the web page so it knows where to forward users to.
6) Dynamic IP solution: Most people have a dynamic IP address given to them by their ISP. This means the IP address of your computer might change. This is a problem because DNS needs to know the IP address of the computer that people need to be forwarded to when typing a domain name. There is a way to solve this problem without having to pay your ISP more money for a static IP. There are applications that will automatically update DNS when your IP changes.
7) Securing your server: The last step is to make sure your computer is protected from malicious programs on the internet by having the necessary software installed and configured.
Let’s find out how simple is to have a website.
Today you just need couple of dollars per month or even less to get a paid web hosting service. Try to avoid free hosting plans which not only waste your time and effort but also create problems in the ranking of your site in top search results of major search engines. Moreover it can also disturb your quality earning through Google AdSense program.
Steps to host a website
1- First step is to buy a domain for your site which will be an online identity of your product or business. Usually it costs $5-10 per year. Some example domain registrars are name.com, godaddy.com and internet.bs.
2- After buying domain, you have to choose a web hosting company to upload your site to make it accessible online round the clock. Here you have to do little research to find the most suitable web hosting service for your site. Choose are reliable and cheap host for your website.
3- After paying web hosting company, upload your site to their server using FTP or Cpanel. Cpanel is a control panel which provides you easy management and maintenance process for your website.
4- Once you have uploaded the code and content of your website, replace the dns in domain panel to new dns provided by web hosting company.
5- Test your website and fix the issues ( if there are any).
Once your website is accessible on internet, Now start thinking of revenue model. How to cash your internet audience?
Ways to earn from your website
1- You can earn through placing Google ads on your site. It is not difficult thing to do, you just need to have at least 20 to 30 pages with almost 100 visitors a day to make a reasonable earning per month.
2- You can also earn through selling the products on website, for example an e-book, software or services. Payments can be received via PayPal or any other acceptable payment processor.
3- Another way to earn is to place private ads or banners on your website.
Good luck! in your website venture.